En Route Design & Print has been around as a printer for 43 years. It has come through recessions, sudden withdrawal from the ERM, the Lehman crisis, Brexit and most recently Covid and the cost of living crisis. It has outlived printers near to its factory in South Godstone. “Ten years ago there were seven or eight printers in East Grinstead. Now there are none. And last year Oxted Colour Printers closed down. We are last man standing,” says managing director Vince Hogg. “It is survival of the most stubborn.”
En Route is no stick in the mud operation. It is on its third web to print solution and has recently installed the latest Ricoh Pro C9500 cut sheet press. This replaces a Xerox Versant and joins a Heidelberg Anicolor. This is in effect a Speedmaster 52 but with a direct inking system. It never caught on in the way that Heidelberg thought it might. In a way it was a machine ahead of its time. The inking system removes a source of variation in print quality and means the press is easier to run. Start up waste is almost non existent. While the approach works well in the smallest format, scaling up proved less effective. Many fell out of love for the concept. Hogg is the exception. “This is a brilliant machine. If we take care of it it will last another four or five years for us.”
At present it is a part time press. With Covid came the stress of coping when the order book vanishes. Later there was a reshaping of the business for the post Covid world. Staffing was slimmed down, three to one in the finishing department and En Route found that its press minder, like many others of his age, decided to retire early. He was persuaded to stay on for two days a week. Now litho jobs are queued up for the days he is in. As there is minimal makeready and the press can run at 15,000sph, it eats its way through work. If volumes increase in the future, Hogg will be looking for another part time minder, believing that, after Covid, there are many that would be happy to work a couple of days a week but do not want a full time job.
It is not as if the company can only print a couple of days a week. The Ricoh is there to handle those jobs that just can’t wait. The idea now is that the two machines can run in tandem, switching between the two technologies as appropriate. It was with this approach in mind that Hogg set out to find a replacement for the Xerox. He wanted too to be able to run thicker materials to produce lightweight cartons. Not all the machines that were tested could cope, despite claims from suppliers that they can handle thicker stocks. The new Ricoh could. It includes other improvements to improve consistency and quality over previous generations of digital press. For example, it has the ability to vary the finish to produce a softer and more litho like finish than the telltale gloss of a typical toner press. Speed is increased, but says Hogg, is of less importance as on short runs the impact is limited.
This is not the only investment for the future. There is an HP large format printer upstairs from the press room which was installed to produce banners. A large cutting table, rescued from what was in effect a skip, is for finishing what is printed. “We were using a trade service that could offer a four-day turnaround, which was fine until customers wanted a faster delivery. It was too slow, the customer wants the job in one or two days. We do not make more money from doing this in-house, it’s the service element and that we can do.”
At this point, En Route also took on a small start up operation, a one-person design led business that had been operating from home and trying to produce on equipment that had limitations in terms of production printing.
This because apparent when a substantial job came in and needed to be handled by a business with that level of technology and experience. That was En Route. Hogg suggested that she come and work on site where she could expand the services she offered to her contacts and perhaps look after some of En Route’s customers. That would relieve some of the burden from the managing director he says.
A recent brush with Covid laid him low for a couple of weeks and on returning found everything as it should be, he says.
At the same time En Route has re-examined its online activities and given them a complete refresh including social media marketing. Hogg has further knowledge of how powerful this can be: his daughter works in the social media space including for one of the younger French champagne houses. Short videos for TikTok can reach millions of views, but the company knows nothing about print, using stock rather than commissioned photography and Vista for its print requirements.
En Route is not in that ball park let alone league in terms of its own social media activities. However, Hogg recognises the value of social media, influencers and the various channels to grow awareness of what the print business is about. “When I started I used to knock on doors, you could see people and get the work. Now it’s about creating the awareness using social media,” he says. “You used to get asked to quote for work, now the answer will often be ‘we don’t print’. Then when they do, you have to be able to offer what else they might need, hence our investment in large format print.”
An investment that has definitely paid off is the Infigo web to print platform. It follows on from an early interest in Red Tie that ended when the developer was forced to acknowledge that its system didn’t actually do what was being promised at the time. Then came a VPress set up and latterly Infigo. The VPress probably had the edge for business cards he says but not for the more ambitious plans that the company is now trying to implement.
It is not about an open storefront. En Route cannot compete with online print’s big guns where margins are paper thin. Instead it is about creating internal and integrated portals for customers to make ordering of print simpler and faster. That is if customers can be persuaded to use it. Hogg explains that many still like to submit an email with artwork attached and to have a conversation with the printer. This is not how these things are supposed to work. Perhaps a combination of the isolation of Covid with many still working from home and unfamiliarity with an interface that they rarely use gives the phone call and human contact added appeal.
It will not last. A new generation will be happier online. Another print customer is an academy schools group. There is something that the printer can do in terms of implementing a templated prospectus combining standard information and imagery with content pertaining to that school. Other templates can lead to folders with subject specific sheets for open days, banners and similar for these and other school events as well as the standard set of stationery requirements. More and more schools are choosing to create personalised prospectuses. This ought to be rolled out this year says Hogg. “Schools want to personalise their brochures and to use very short run print.”
The company did start a design service as En Route Creative but found there has been little call for this shift upstream. Not entirely though. There has been a rebrand for an industrial chemicals company covering its print, online activities and exhibition stands. “We are trying to combine that sort of consultation led sale with the online ordering. It works well for a few clients,” he says.
More immediately what is starting to work well for the business is a deal to take on the business of a small print management business who looked after the print interests of a number of clients using his experience and knowledge about the capabilities of a good number of printers to supply work – and with a handy margin. The deal has been structured as a retirement deal with an element about persuading the former owner to relinquish the reins over an extended period while En Route takes on the administration, begins invoicing and handling customer communications. It has been a slow process, but now En Route is starting to take full control of the process, including visiting customers that are not used to such attention.
En Route can prints work that is suitable for its machinery, and is placing work with a portfolio of printers it will never compete directly with. “This has added 30% to our turnover,” Hogg says.
The customers are receiving visits, which had not occurred previously, and have already reported a welcome improvement in service levels. “We like to go and meet clients. Nobody wants to lose that human contact. I called one of his clients saying it would be nice to meet up. The client was delighted and I gained a better insight into their operation.” Hogg is keen to get out and visit them rather than to invite the customer down to South Godstone. “This is not the sort of place to invite them too – it’s a very factoryesque space,” he says. There is little spare space on the ground floor with presses, paper and finishing seeming to jostle for the best space.
It works for En Route. Upstairs there is scarcely more room with a few desks in an open plan office, room for platesetter and HP, the studio and meeting room. There is no expectation that customers will come to visit. Some do, however. “Sometimes people come in with stuff that’s super urgent,” he says. The Anicolor helps out in this regard. Hogg remembers promising a customer that his business cards would be ready to pick up the next morning. The press operator came in half an hour early the next day, printed off the limited number sheets required, guillotined the sheets and packed the cards ahead of a 9am pick up.
Hogg is now eyeing the potential of packaging. One aspect of the Ricoh press is its ability to print carton weight boards, rated at up to 600 microns. This can be used for short run light weight work. But there is also printing on paper that is used to wrap a presentation box to be opened under the glare of a live streaming video by a key online influencer. This is potentially a big market that En Route can handle with a little help from friends on the same industrial estate that have the finishing skills and equipment necessary to make such boxes.
There is an expanded range of contacts thanks to the print management business and plenty of opportunity to grow the core operation. “We know we need to be more proactive ourselves to promote what we can do with the Infigo,” he says. “We can also ask existing clients what else we can do for them. Acquisition of the print management business is a wonderful opportunity.”
Three or four years ago Hogg would not have been so optimistic. Covid caused mayhem across all businesses. En Route severed its ties with invoice discounting, emerged with fewer people and has, says Hogg, “rebalanced the business”.
MORE FROM THE MAGAZINE
EXPLORE MORE ON OTHER PRINTERS
